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 Agent_Tremolo wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
I like how none of the novels recommended by Atomic Rockets site ever got a Hugo award, especially a gem like Human Reach series.

Or the Atomic Rockets site itself.

I feel bad for Ken Burnside, actually. Even if "the cold equations" doesn't hold much literary value in itself, it is a must read for anyone interested in writing a realistic depiction of space warfare. Sadly, he messed up big time with a couple of untimely comments at Nielsen-Hayden's blog and got immediately lumped with the puppy hardliners.

Heck, for the sake of sci-fi, I wish he'd kept his head down. He was probably the only Puppy nominee who deserved a win IMHO.

How is that Burnside's fault? His work speaks for itself. The problem is with other people who have decided that an author's political beliefs, B they real or perceived, matter more than the quality of their writing.

The whole trfan vs wrongfan fight is pathetic and disgraceful. WorldCon chose to let people buy memberships and vote for Hugos. Then when popular authors get more fan than ever to buy memberships, giving WorldCon more money and more members than ever the aging old guard of WorldCon voters decides that they don't like their own system after all because they want to continue to be the small insular group that can control the awards. They can't just let any sci Fi fan with $40 cast a vote because then those horrible people who are fans of the genre and willing to pay WorldCon for a membership might vote for books that the insular old guard doesn't like. Even worse than that blatant hypocrisy of condemning fans for participating in fan voting, you have WorldCon trufans that decide that the personal politics of authors is what's really important regardless of their ability to write good scifi that sells lots of books, helps keep the genre healthy and the fan base growing.

I have no idea what Marko Kloos' personal politics are. A friend of mine recommended his first book to me so I bought it, read it, liked it, bought more of his stories. Judging by his book sales and amazon reviews I am far from the only person who's a fan of his. Yet WorldCon trufans can't stand the idea that Kloos' fans might choose to participate in Hugo voting because in the giant Venn digram of scifi fans Kloos' fans overlap with fans of sad puppy authors and anyone who could be even tangentially connected to anyone with wrong politics who writes wrong stories or gets wrong enjoyment from reading wrong stories because the stories aren't the right stories that the small insular group of WorldCon trufans choose to laud as award worthy must be shunned as strongly as possible.

If the wrong fans like your stories then you have to be shunned from the Hugos forever because only a small select few people are worthy of telling the world what "good" scifi looks like.

WorldCon just told huge fan bases of popular authors to feth off and stop giving them money and participating in fan voting because they're wrong fans because reasons.

Now everybody knows that what used to be the most prestigious award for scifi literature is only concerned with the opinions of a select few members of a dwindling Con that chooses self congratulating insularity rather than inclusiveness to support a genre that has always had a rich history of inclusivity .

 cincydooley wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
while 4 films that were basically unknown were.

Oh really? Which were those?

I'm looking at that list and can't see any "unknowns' on there...

Boyhood? The film was virtually unheard of until it was nominated. Whiplash. Selma. EDIT: Even after these films are little known of, unless you pay attention to the awards.

Boyhood is a linklater film. If you're into movies at all you know him and his work.

Selma was the Oprah movie. Hardly obscure.

I guess I'll give you whiplash, but buzz started for that early. And was sustained.

And it was better than Guardians.

I'd heard of Whiplash. But then again I play the drums so it's the kind of thing I would've noticed


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:

 sebster wrote:
It’s never quite clear what people mean when they talk about the decline of science fiction. It’s a notion that people just accept, but without any kind of detail as to what they actually mean.

Mainly because there doesn't seem to be any 'greats' anymore, no Clarke or Asimov to get interested in. To paraphrase the great poet of our time (Kanye West) does anyone make real anymore?

I confess to being an outsider though, which is part of the problem - my outsider perspective is that Science Fiction has little to offer right now. Apart from love stories about dinosaurs.

The Long Earth series. You're welcome.

Prestor Jon wrote:
How is that Burnside's fault? His work speaks for itself. The problem is with other people who have decided that an author's political beliefs, B they real or perceived, matter more than the quality of their writing.

Maybe if he had used his brief moments of exposure to defend the merits of his work instead of flinging poop against Rachel Swirsky...

Burnside wouldn't have won. Feel free to look through the Hugo winners over the years. Burnside writes scifi as hard as hard scifi can get, but those kinds of works haven't found much success at the Hugo Awards since the late 70's (and even before that, scifi like Burnside writes wasn't the most successful).

Now everybody knows that what used to be the most prestigious award for scifi literature is only concerned with the opinions of a select few members of a dwindling Con that chooses self congratulating insularity rather than inclusiveness to support a genre that has always had a rich history of inclusivity .

Explain this to me. WorldCon is basically a popular contest, right? I mean the only requirement is that you pay a $40 fee and you can vote for whatever. You can even vote for nominees. So, if these 'popular' authors that the mean 'elitist World Con Minority' are being shut out... Wait that makes no sense! The fact that they got voted down so hard, would seem to suggest that these 'popular' authors are not as popular as some people seem to think they are, and that the the 'elitist minority' is actually the majority.

It's the second irony behind Sad Puppies (after that they're basically talking nonsense). Sad Puppies are the real elitist minority. WorldCon is just a bunch of people voting in a scifi popularity contest. There are some obvious political trends in the winners sure, but the award has always been that way. Any given group will have bias'. It's unavoidable, why do you expect WorldCon members to be any different? Go find me an award that isn't. Further, who cares? At least the winners of Hugo Awards tend to be good enough that I can nod and say "well it was pretty good." That's already a full leg up on a half dozen other prestigious awards

All Sad Puppies really amounts to is a bunch of pretentious fans throwing a raging temper tantrum because another group of pretentious fans has different bias' than they do.

 LordofHats wrote:
Burnside wouldn't have won. Feel free to look through the Hugo winners over the years. Burnside writes scifi as hard as hard scifi can get, but those kinds of works haven't found much success at the Hugo Awards since the late 70's (and even before that, scifi like Burnside writes wasn't the most successful).

Started reading it. Looks like mostly the same stuff that Atomic Rockets was talking about for over a decade. Though he was a source of some of the stuff at Atomic Rockets.

The thing is that it's old news. There's already a series of novels who follows the rules - reaction mass, no stealth, necessity of cooling, huge ranges etc. - the only concession to fantasy is that it has wormholes for interstellar travel.

The Human Reach

Check out the author credentials.

The combination of an experienced journalist author and a the author of the Atomic Rocket as a consultant means that it avoids most of pitfalls of "Sci-fi" - avoids being dry and technology obsessed while avoiding being fantasy in space. AFAIK it's the most realistic military sci-fi out there.

To be honest, I have no idea how it's possible that it's not showered with awards and widely published.

 LordofHats wrote:
WorldCon is just a bunch of people voting in a scifi popularity contest. There are some obvious political trends in the winners sure, but the award has always been that way. Any given group will have bias'. It's unavoidable, why do you expect WorldCon members to be any different? Go find me an award that isn't. Further, who cares? At least the winners of Hugo Awards tend to be good enough that I can nod and say "well it was pretty good." That's already a full leg up on a half dozen other prestigious awards

What's the point of having awards when it's just a mob vote?

It's like the peoples choice awards in movies. Not to be taken seriously, though you might find out the best kiss scene.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

What's the point of having awards when it's just a mob vote?

The point of any award is so far as people care who gets it. The Hugo award is one of the few to actually have an impact on sales (Hugo Award winners have tangible sales boosts attributable to winning the Hugo). So that's the point and is why publishers care, and people care because people like scifi sometimes and they get together to talk about their favorites (one could say it's a lot like an internet forums )

Beyond that... so what? The award is what the award is. All awards are basically popularity contests. It's just a question of how many people's opinions get counted and what it is that group is looking for in a piece.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Agent_Tremolo wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:
I like how none of the novels recommended by Atomic Rockets site ever got a Hugo award, especially a gem like Human Reach series.

Or the Atomic Rockets site itself.

I feel bad for Ken Burnside, actually. Even if "the cold equations" doesn't hold much literary value in itself, it is a must read for anyone interested in writing a realistic depiction of space warfare. Sadly, he messed up big time with a couple of untimely comments at Nielsen-Hayden's blog and got immediately lumped with the puppy hardliners.

Heck, for the sake of sci-fi, I wish he'd kept his head down. He was probably the only Puppy nominee who deserved a win IMHO.

How is that Burnside's fault? His work speaks for itself. The problem is with other people who have decided that an author's political beliefs, B they real or perceived, matter more than the quality of their writing.

The whole trfan vs wrongfan fight is pathetic and disgraceful. WorldCon chose to let people buy memberships and vote for Hugos. Then when popular authors get more fan than ever to buy memberships, giving WorldCon more money and more members than ever the aging old guard of WorldCon voters decides that they don't like their own system after all because they want to continue to be the small insular group that can control the awards. They can't just let any sci Fi fan with $40 cast a vote because then those horrible people who are fans of the genre and willing to pay WorldCon for a membership might vote for books that the insular old guard doesn't like. Even worse than that blatant hypocrisy of condemning fans for participating in fan voting, you have WorldCon trufans that decide that the personal politics of authors is what's really important regardless of their ability to write good scifi that sells lots of books, helps keep the genre healthy and the fan base growing.

I have no idea what Marko Kloos' personal politics are. A friend of mine recommended his first book to me so I bought it, read it, liked it, bought more of his stories. Judging by his book sales and amazon reviews I am far from the only person who's a fan of his. Yet WorldCon trufans can't stand the idea that Kloos' fans might choose to participate in Hugo voting because in the giant Venn digram of scifi fans Kloos' fans overlap with fans of sad puppy authors and anyone who could be even tangentially connected to anyone with wrong politics who writes wrong stories or gets wrong enjoyment from reading wrong stories because the stories aren't the right stories that the small insular group of WorldCon trufans choose to laud as award worthy must be shunned as strongly as possible.

If the wrong fans like your stories then you have to be shunned from the Hugos forever because only a small select few people are worthy of telling the world what "good" scifi looks like.

WorldCon just told huge fan bases of popular authors to feth off and stop giving them money and participating in fan voting because they're wrong fans because reasons.

Now everybody knows that what used to be the most prestigious award for scifi literature is only concerned with the opinions of a select few members of a dwindling Con that chooses self congratulating insularity rather than inclusiveness to support a genre that has always had a rich history of inclusivity .

Exalted for truth.
Apparently I'm the wrong type of fan for the Hugos because I would rather have an interesting story than a sermon.

 MWHistorian wrote:

Exalted for truth.
Apparently I'm the wrong type of fan for the Hugos because I would rather have an interesting story than a sermon.

And the first irony of Puppies. That claim has never been true. The same year the guy who started Puppies made that complaint about the Hugos, Best Novel went to Redshirts. Seriously, if books like Harry Potter, American Gods, Neuromancer, and Ender's Game are what you'd call 'heavy handed message fic' then I'd question if your issue is with sermons rather than any book/story written with an inkling of intelligent thought and writing talent.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

...
...
...
What's the point of having awards when it's just a mob vote?

Sad Puppies obviously think there is a point in the award or they would not have tried to influence it.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

What's the point of having awards when it's just a mob vote?

The point of any award is so far as people care who gets it. The Hugo award is one of the few to actually have an impact on sales (Hugo Award winners have tangible sales boosts attributable to winning the Hugo). So that's the point and is why publishers care, and people care because people like scifi sometimes and they get together to talk about their favorites (one could say it's a lot like an internet forums )

It seems that it's solely for people who were already chosen by the mob, though. It doesn't serve to enlighten the mob but to merely confirm its choices.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
By the way, here's the first chapter of Through Struggle, the Stars.
http://www.thehumanreach.net/Through%20Struggle%20the%20Stars%20-%20promo.pdf
It has a single starship battle starting after page 30.

 Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

It seems that it's solely for people who were already chosen by the mob, though. It doesn't serve to enlighten the mob but to merely confirm its choices.

Welcome to every award ever.

Well, "the mob" implies people potentially rioting in the streets to get their nominations on the ticket.

What actually happens is that anyone who cares to, can buy a $40 membership and vote as they like in complete anonymity and safety from coercion.

There is no mob, in other words.

 LordofHats wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

Exalted for truth.
Apparently I'm the wrong type of fan for the Hugos because I would rather have an interesting story than a sermon.

And the first irony of Puppies. That claim has never been true. The same year the guy who started Puppies made that complaint about the Hugos, Best Novel went to Redshirts. Seriously, if books like Harry Potter, American Gods, Neuromancer, and Ender's Game are what you'd call 'heavy handed message fic' then I'd question if your issue is with sermons rather than any book/story written with an inkling of intelligent thought and writing talent.

Funny you mention Red Shirts by Scalzi. He's the one that campaigned for his fans to get him nominated. It was his example that the Sad Puppies were using. But when they did it, they were wrong. Scalzi also fits in with the political ideals of the Hugo board.
Also, Nueromancer and Ender's Game were back when the Hugos still mattered.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The Long Earth series. You're welcome.

My thanks for that, I'll look into it

 MWHistorian wrote:

Funny you mention Red Shirts by Scalzi. He's the one that campaigned for his fans to get him nominated. It was his example that the Sad Puppies were using. But when they did it, they were wrong. Scalzi also fits in with the political ideals of the Hugo board.
Also, Nueromancer and Ender's Game were back when the Hugos still mattered.

Authors have always campaigned to get their works nominated for a Hugo, as has been pointed out numerous times. Lots of rewards actually involve a little campaigning. You can even hire PR and marketing firms to do it for you if you want, because awards are part of PR and marketing (who knew). Further, Redshirts actually deserved to win. It's one of the best scifi novels put out in ages. If you haven't read it yet you totally should because it's hilarious EDIT: Ender's Game was also "campaigned" for.

But never before has anyone or any group campaigned to have an entire slate nominated, let alone an entire slate nominated for absurd claims of "political ideals" (vague and unclear "political ideas" at that) and accusations of fixing that run completely counter to the nature how the Hugo award works.

Good job moving the goal posts though. Now I have a third irony, because if anything actually sabotages the relevance of the Hugo Award, it'll be groups like Sad Puppies trying to fix the entire ballot and overtly politicizing the award, not single authors every now and then asking fans to support them at World Con.

 LordofHats wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

Funny you mention Red Shirts by Scalzi. He's the one that campaigned for his fans to get him nominated. It was his example that the Sad Puppies were using. But when they did it, they were wrong. Scalzi also fits in with the political ideals of the Hugo board.
Also, Nueromancer and Ender's Game were back when the Hugos still mattered.

Authors have always campaigned to get their works nominated for a Hugo, as has been pointed out numerous times. Lots of rewards actually involve a little campaigning. You can even hire PR and marketing firms to do it for you if you want, because awards are part of PR and marketing (who knew). Further, Redshirts actually deserved to win. It's one of the best scifi novels put out in ages. If you haven't read it yet you totally should because it's hilarious

But never before has anyone or any group campaigned to have an entire slate nominated, let alone an entire slate nominated for absurd claims of "political ideals" (vague and unclear "political ideas" at that) and accusations of fixing that run completely counter to the nature how the Hugo award works.

Good job moving the goal posts though.

They're not vague or absurd. Well, they are if you only read what their detractors say and ignore completely what Sad Puppies actually say. (I detest the Rabid Puppies though.)
Goal posts moving? No, my stance hasn't changed.
I've read Scalzi's other books and was highly unimpressed. Old Man's War was the least accurate depiction of a military since the original Star Trek show.

 MWHistorian wrote:

They're not vague or absurd.

Then you might want to try identifying them, because Sad Puppies has said a million things, lots of them contradictory, which is vague and I've made several posts throughout these threads pointing out how many of the claims are absurd.

Goal posts moving? No, my stance hasn't changed.

Well first your issue was "sermons" now your issue is "political ideals" and this mysterious 'board.'

I've read Scalzi's other books and was highly unimpressed..

And I find Orson Scott Card's books incredibly disturbing and most of Neil Gaiman's works annoyingly pretentious in their assumptions about people, but you know, sometimes credit goes where credit goes, because American Gods (and Sandman) and Ender's Game (and Speaker for the Dead) were pretty damn good

 LordofHats wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

They're not vague or absurd.

Then you might want to try identifying them, because Sad Puppies has said a million things, lots of them contradictory, which is vague and I've made several posts throughout these threads pointing out how many of the claims are absurd.

Goal posts moving? No, my stance hasn't changed.

Well first your issue was "sermons" now your issue is "political ideals" and this mysterious 'board.'

I've read Scalzi's other books and was highly unimpressed..

And I find Orson Scott Card's books incredibly disturbing and most of Neil Gaiman's works annoyingly pretentious in their assumptions about people, but you know, sometimes credit goes where credit goes, because American Gods (and Sandman) and Ender's Game (and Speaker for the Dead) were pretty damn good

I love all of those books. But I don't like Scalzi's writing. Heck, Card was the one that first taught me how to write.
'Sermons' was referencing the books that worried more about preaching a cause than telling a good story.
'political ideals' was referencing the political ideals of the authors. As in, if you don't have the correct political persuasion, don't bother trying for a Hugo.
And as for vagueness. They've made their stance pretty clear to me. I'm not going to rehash everything all over again.

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The Long Earth series. You're welcome.

My thanks for that, I'll look into it

I've been reading that myself lately (two books in) and I'm really enjoying it. You can take that with a grain of salt though; I'm a pretty big Pratchett fan after all.

 MWHistorian wrote:

'political ideals' was referencing the political ideals of the authors. As in, if you don't have the correct political persuasion, don't bother trying for a Hugo.

And I'm curious what those are, because Hugo Award winners have a pretty diverse range of politics over the decades. Even in the last few years there's been a range. China Mieville is a pretty active guy in liberal politics and is an outspoken Socialist (his book The City & the City was nominated and won in 2010) but Connie Willis (won in 2011 for Blackout/All Clear) has made frequent attacks against the very idea of political correctness (Blackout/All Clear is topical right now, as the series was about letting ideology override common sense). Annie Leckie has said little if anything about politics from what I can tell, and writes good old fashion space opera. Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl won in 2010 and his works are all about Bioengineering (read GMO) will be just as destructive is not more so than fossil fuels. Aside from writing a lot about the impacts of AI, Vernor Vinge's (Rainbow's End, 2007) works are chalk full of how awesome Laissez Faire Capitalism is. And that's just four writers who've won in the last couple years that I can think of/find who have overt political messages in their works. If Ann Leckie has a political message beyond "tyranny bad" I can't find it, which is usually a good sign that the author understand subtlety

^And that's just winners. I haven't even bothered to do a summary check on nominees.

And what books are "preaching a cause?" This claim keeps getting made but no one ever identifies why they mean by it, and more than that why it should even matter. People seek to derive meaning from narrative. Even if an author completely tried to avoid leaving a message they'd fail. Even today typical readers can't grasp Tolkein's rather simple position of 'allegory' and 'applicability' because fact of the matter is the human brain isn't wired to function that way. There will always be a message (i.e. a cause) so there's little choice but to assume that "preaching a cause and not telling a good story" is just code for "I don't like what this story is about." So we just come full circle to the reality of what sad puppies is; it has nothing to do with 'causes' or 'sermons' but the plain matter that Sad Puppies has a set of bias' different' from those of World Con as a whole and is whining like a 2 year old on a 16 hour plane trip that their bias' are not being reflected by the winners. And how is it any different from the books that have always won the Hugo?

Have your read Ender's Game, Stranger in a Strange Land, Foundations Edge, or Dune? Because they all have a message (and pretty strong ones). Fahrenheit 451 was retroactively awarded a Hugo in 2004 and the whole book was a scathing assault of conservative politics of the 50's! I mean Jesus The Forever War and Starship Troopers are Hugo Winners and both of those books are little more than the political thoughts and ramblings of their authors with a facade of narrative wrapped around them so that their genre is science fiction instead of Philosophy 101 Text Books. Stranger in a Strange Land, is arguably the most hippie book ever written by anyone.

In which case, so what? Go make your own award if you want your chosen winners to win. Otherwise you're stuck accepting that other people exist and their opinions might differ from yours (well you'd ideally accept that anyway, but I know how some groups like to exist in a bubble and pretend their the 'real fans' or w/e they call themselves)

*I keep referencing Best Novel because it's the easiest most straight forward award to talk about

And as for vagueness. They've made their stance pretty clear to me.

Maybe to you. To me the few things that have been clear have been on their face fallacious, and everything else is a jumble of opinions ranging in intensity from "liberal bias in the media" to "get back in the kitchen."

"A couple of decades ago" has nothing to do with the current situation.
One of the authors being a socialist isn't exactly a point in their favor when Sad puppies accuse the Hugos of having a strong liberal bias.
I loved Windup girl. One of my favorite books of that year. But yes, it was actually a very liberal book in terms of philosophy and politics.

 MWHistorian wrote:
"A couple of decades ago" has nothing to do with the current situation.

And how is the current situation any different from the past situation?

 LordofHats wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
"A couple of decades ago" has nothing to do with the current situation.

And how is the current situation any different from the past situation?

Because the Hugos have changed. They used to be good. Now they're fossils stuck in a cliquish mindset. I thought you understood what the Sad Puppies were arguing against?

 MWHistorian wrote:

Because the Hugos have changed.

How? I keep asking for clarifications of Sad puppies complaints and all I get is vague answers.

You claim that the Hugo Awards have been focusing on books that push agenda more than story, but I just listed Stranger in a Strange Land, The Forever War, Starship Troopers, and Foundation, two of which were practically pure agenda. So is the issue that there's an agenda present, or is the issue that you disagree with it? I find either position kind of childish in regards to the subject, but it might help if puppies could actually get it's head out of it's butt long enough to actually notice that the Hugos have always been that way. Every award is that way. If Sad Puppies went and made its own award, their award would be that way.

They used to be good.

I'd argue that so long as joint Hugo/Nebula Award winners keep popping up, they're still pretty good I consider it a sign that World Con actually has taste that there are so many joint winners (even more so because both awards tend to end up choosing between the same nominees).

Now they're fossils stuck in a cliquish mindset.

How does that even make sense with your earlier claim of liberal bias? Liberals tend to be pretty 'progressively' minded. I mean, among the winners of the Hugo Award in recent years have been Gay-Right proponents, pro-Choice advocates, minorities, and women. Seems like the Hugo's have been keeping up with the general trends of politics to me so how exactly does that make them fossils? And yet at the same time winners include Capitalists, homophobes, and anti-PC.

Sad Puppies argues that the Hugo favors literary works over 'fun' but again, not sure how that's any different from how it's always been or even what they expect to happen to fix this 'problem.' Sad Puppies seems to have taken for granted that Hugo Award winners have always been on the lower rungs of 'literary' because when we're talking about literature awards, being an author of books that don't push new ground or shoot for some kind of novelty usually means your just another face in the crowd. You actually have to do something to stand out, which entails being at least a little bit literary.

And Hugo Winners have reflected this since the 50's when the Award started because other literature awards wouldn't give Sci-Fi or Fantasy the time of day, let alone a seat at the table. They seemed to have it their head that sci-fi and fantasy couldn't possibly be the works of intelligent people.* Very few non-literary works have ever won it the Hugo. People today might lose track of that, because what might have been 'literary' 50 years ago has become typical now (Dune, Neuomancer, and Foundation were all literary works. Most Hugo winners have been. I'd actually argue more Hugo winners have been chosen for literary value than political value).

*EDIT: I'd also really like to hammer this because it's kind of funny now that I think about it.

I thought you understood what the Sad Puppies were arguing against?

I do understand it insofar as I can be sane and make a semblance sense of the madness. I think Sad Puppies fails to realize it's own rank hypocrisy, or that the bulk of their complaints make no sense. I think the reason I always get vague answers for Saddies (puppiers? w/e) is because they haven't even thought through their own position, which explains why it makes so little sense. I think that's because Sad Puppies is a juvenile group with childish complaints, because like a book I don't just stop thinking the moment the words go past my eyes, like most people

You're going off the assumption that Sad Puppies are insane and irrational. You can't have an actual conversation when you assign insanity to their motivations. When you can discuss this rationally, I'll be glad to continue.

And yes, cliquishness can be done by liberals. Wow.

 MWHistorian wrote:
You're going off the assumption that Sad Puppies are insane and irrational.

It's not an assumption I've even made. There's a rationality behind Sad Puppies, I just don't like it and I think it's anti-intellectual, ideologically motivated, and built on a number of false premises. If you think that's insane, well that's your description not mine. I'd call it 'juvenile.'

And yes, cliquishness can be done by liberals. Wow.

I never said they couldn't (I didn't even really debate that point because I think the Hugo Award is Cliquish). To discuss that point, let me ask why is it a problem and how what would you prefer? What do you even mean by cliquishness (because I would consider every award I've ever seen, and Sad Puppies itself, at least a little bit cliquish because fandom itself is cliquish).

And, you seem to be going off the assumption there is a discussion. You're posts constitute a long series of vague non-answers to any of the question's I've posed. In fact, the only definite responses you've given have been cherry picked and completely miss the point of what is being discussed. Talking to a mime who just shakes his head at everything I say and occasionally shouts 'nuh-huh' at random isn't really a discussion if you want to heighten the level of discussion, you might try looking in your own corner and elevating your responses, cause I'm not getting much to work with

It's not an assumption I've even made. There's a rationality behind Sad Puppies, I just don't like it and I think it's anti-intellectual, ideologically motivated, and built on a number of false premises. If you think that's insane, well that's your description not mine. I'd call it 'juvenile.'

 LordofHats wrote:


I do understand it insofar as I can be sane and make a semblance sense of the madness. I think that's because Sad Puppies is a juvenile group with childish complaints, because like a book I don't just stop thinking the moment the words go past my eyes, like most people

You seem to be contradicting yourself there.

 MWHistorian wrote:

It's not an assumption I've even made. There's a rationality behind Sad Puppies, I just don't like it and I think it's anti-intellectual, ideologically motivated, and built on a number of false premises. If you think that's insane, well that's your description not mine. I'd call it 'juvenile.'

 LordofHats wrote:


I do understand it insofar as I can be sane and make a semblance sense of the madness. I think that's because Sad Puppies is a juvenile group with childish complaints, because like a book I don't just stop thinking the moment the words go past my eyes, like most people

You seem to be contradicting yourself there.

In case you've not even been reading my posts and just cherry picking the bits you can sit there and self-righteously indignify yourself with; I've complained that Sad Puppies is a large group with different members making vague and seemingly contradictory claims and I've asked numerous times for clarification on what it means to you so that it can be talked about in a precise manner. If you want to exploit the 'madness' and the opinion of Sad Puppies I've cobbled together from trying to understand it to avoid actually having to discuss anything of merit, I suppose you can do that but it's kind of hypocritical for you to complain about the discussion while continually dragging it down the basest level.

 MWHistorian wrote:

One of the authors being a socialist isn't exactly a point in their favor when Sad puppies accuse the Hugos of having a strong liberal bias.

No. Stop. Just no. Words have meaning, and "liberal" and "socialist" are two different things.